Looking for Defensive Pistol training near Woodburn, OR

Active Member

I live near Woodburn, OR and have recently received my CHL. I grew up on a farm shooting long guns for fun and sport, not much pistol stuff. I have not shot pistols extensively, but know the basics and can hit pretty good on targets.

I have a couple of semi-autos for carry and a 22 revolver for plinking, and I practice with all of them. For me, practicing involves heading down the road to my folks place where they have a great spot for shooting into a good, safe backstop. I shoot targets at 5-15 yards with all of my pistols just to keep familiar with them. I am not terribly accurate, but can knock out the center of a target at close range.

I am looking for an instructor to teach me the nuances of defensive pistol shooting and don't really know where to look, so I figured I would ask here. Please let me know of anybody in my area that can help me. Thank you!

Well-Known Member

Well, this sounds rather self promoting...but Oregon Firearms Academy (OFA) is about 1 hour south of you and is a sponsor of this forum. OFA has been in business for over 15 years, and attracts around 900 students annually from all 50 states including Canada and other nations. OFA has a state of the art dedicated training facility - so you're not training at a rock pit, off a forest road, or at a public range with other distractions. Please visit the website at Oregon Firearms Academy LLC to learn more or to see the facility.

OFA offers roughly 25+ various defensive small arms courses and the course you're needing is called Defensive Handgun 1 (DH1). The next DH1 is offered in January. One of the forum's Moderators attended a DH1 a couple years ago and wrote an unsoliciated post/article about the course. Also a Training Officer from the PPB who attended a DH3 wrote about his OFA experience in their Agency newletter. There are several other articles. You can read about them here.

We have a wide/diverse group of students ranging from the Joe & Jane Doe's, to police officers, SWAT, Spec Ops, goverment agencies, and the military. Most recently several soldiers from the Oregon NG 1186 MP trained with us just prior to their recent deployment. Our diversity of staff and students helps make OFA a "rich learning environment".

Member

I live near Woodburn, OR and have recently received my CHL. I grew up on a farm shooting long guns for fun and sport, not much pistol stuff. I have not shot pistols extensively, but know the basics and can hit pretty good on targets.

I have a couple of semi-autos for carry and a 22 revolver for plinking, and I practice with all of them. For me, practicing involves heading down the road to my folks place where they have a great spot for shooting into a good, safe backstop. I shoot targets at 5-15 yards with all of my pistols just to keep familiar with them. I am not terribly accurate, but can knock out the center of a target at close range.

I am looking for an instructor to teach me the nuances of defensive pistol shooting and don't really know where to look, so I figured I would ask here. Please let me know of anybody in my area that can help me. Thank you!

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Hi,

You should seriously look a little south to O.F.A.. I have been there many times and can not say enough about the quality of training, safety and the facilities. The staff are well trained, and take courses constantly to upgrade skills and find out new tricks of the trade, and what works and what doesn't.

Although I am a trainer for my agency, I try to do two to three courses a year when time and funds allow. I do train elsewhere to mix things up and look for new ideas, but I always end up trying to fit in a couple of visits to O.F.A.. I know I will get good training and no wasted time. You won't be sorry spending your training dollars there.

Oh, and lucky you being maybe an hour away. As my online name suggests, my drive to O.F.A. is just on nine hours. Although I know one other student who lives way south of the U.S.. Well worth it!

Active Member

Well-Known Member

My experience is limited to OFA so take this for what it's worth. The money you will spend on an OFA course will be among the best spent hard earned money you will ever part with. I've done 4 OFA courses and all have been great learning experiences. If I had the money I would do 3-4 courses each year. There are a lot of great shooting schools out there but to have the quality of OFA right in western Oregon's backyard is a true gift to serious self defense gun owners in the region. Do yourself a favor and take an OFA course. I gaurantee you will want to go back for more.

Well-Known Member

My experience is limited to OFA so take this for what it's worth. The money you will spend on an OFA course will be among the best spent hard earned money you will ever part with. I've done 4 OFA courses and all have been great learning experiences. If I had the money I would do 3-4 courses each year. There are a lot of great shooting schools out there but to have the quality of OFA right in western Oregon's backyard is a true gift to serious self defense gun owners in the region. Do yourself a favor and take an OFA course. I gaurantee you will want to go back for more.

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This - I have taken DHG 1,2 3 and will take advanced tactics this weekend and I'm driving from across the state. Well worth the dough.

Member

I'm another OFA graduate (10 or so courses taken there + private tutorials and the funnest H2H fighting club I've participated in!), strongly recommending you look no further than them for some of the best quality training out there.

A lot of places will offer you bells and whistles, but very few really have the high level of experience (notice I didn't just say knowledge, I said *experience* - as in "been there, done that") that OFA staff has.

No training I've attended comes even close to what OFA has to offer.

The only drawback is that people who go to OFA get their eyes opened to an entirely new world of defensive tactics, regardless of whether they've shot all their life and think they "got it down", or if they're total newbies to the gun world (like I was/still am - can't stop learning!). You keep going back for more, so be warned!

Well-Known Member

A lot of places will offer you bells and whistles, but very few really have the high level of experience (notice I didn't just say knowledge, I said *experience* - as in "been there, done that") that OFA staff has.

Thunder Ranch is a good choice. There's Insight Training in Seatlle and Praetor Defense in Bellevue.

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I know that several of the OFA instructors have spent plenty of time at Thunder Ranch. I've not done a TR course but based on the TR videos I've watched I feel like a lot of Clint Smith and his philosophy has worked it's way into the OFA instruction.

Well-Known Member

I know that several of the OFA instructors have spent plenty of time at Thunder Ranch. I've not done a TR course but based on the TR videos I've watched I feel like a lot of Clint Smith and his philosophy has worked it's way into the OFA instruction.

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Rick, Joe, and I (OFA) have a long time relationship with Clint and Heidi (Thunder Ranch) and our relationship goes way back before there ever was a Thunder Ranch in Oregon or Texas. Many of the OFA staff have trained extensively with Clint at TR in Texas and in Oregon. Rick and I used to make the trek annually to Texas. We've even hosted one of their courses at OFA years ago and are Adjuncted Instructor's with Clint's mobile training unit ITC and are both graduates of Clint's Handgun and Rifle Instructor Course at TR.

Clint and Heidi are mentors and friends of ours and they gave us their full blessing to use their curriculum at OFA, which we do uses parts 'n pieces with attribution. Clint provided some guidance in the construction of our Adjudicator - Tactical Simulator. Also Rick has assisted Clint with his classes at TR here in Oregon on several occasions when Clint needed help.

So, yes we have much of his philosophy intergrated at OFA.

We compliment one another nicely...OFA provides Force on Force training which TR used to do but doesn't do longer and TR has a multiple level tactical simiulator which OFA does not have. So you get the best of both worlds.

As a side note, due to TR's popularity/demand...generally if you have never trained with them and your training resume is light (meaning you've not had much professional defensive small arms training from a credible source) then Heidi will ask you to train at OFA first before registering for a TR course. We have one gentleman from southern Oregon who recently found this out. He called TR to sign up for a class and they encouraged him to take a couple OFA classes first to get up to speed. This happens on a fairly regular occurance. We encourage our upper level students to train at TR (we call it finishing school) and TR encourages those who've never trained much or never with them to start at OFA.

New Member

I live near Woodburn, OR and have recently received my CHL. I grew up on a farm shooting long guns for fun and sport, not much pistol stuff. I have not shot pistols extensively, but know the basics and can hit pretty good on targets.

I have a couple of semi-autos for carry and a 22 revolver for plinking, and I practice with all of them. For me, practicing involves heading down the road to my folks place where they have a great spot for shooting into a good, safe backstop. I shoot targets at 5-15 yards with all of my pistols just to keep familiar with them. I am not terribly accurate, but can knock out the center of a target at close range.

I am looking for an instructor to teach me the nuances of defensive pistol shooting and don't really know where to look, so I figured I would ask here. Please let me know of anybody in my area that can help me. Thank you!

Well-Known Member

I'm not much of a reviewer but I'll give it a try.
DH3 definitely helped as there was the beginning of team tactics and communication and just that much more experience. In AHT we were encouraged to find our "effectiveness boundary" where you push yourself mentally as well as physically to balance speed vs accuracy. You're expected to manage your ammo and ready condition. The qualifier was a real challenge as the target was not only moving but we went to our bug right in the middle of the shoot. On day two there was emphasis on one handed manipulation both strong and weak hand - learning how to draw and clear malfunctions one handed. Big challenge here - racking your slide one handed -weak hand at that - is not exactly easy! Got to experience the Tueller drill - advancing attacker at 21 feet - you have 1.5 seconds to step out of line of attack, draw and place two aimed shots in center mass. The moving target was a little slow so we did several variations reducing the distance each time. More man on man steel - again with bugs. The ajudicator was intense and fun - team tactics clearing a multi room building - even got to deal with a couple of "drunks." :winkkiss:

We were running out of time but had a quick overview of tactics for disarming (just enough to realize this is a class of its own).

Well-Known Member

I'm not much of a reviewer but I'll give it a try.
DH3 definitely helped as there was the beginning of team tactics and communication and just that much more experience. In AHT we were encouraged to find our "effectiveness boundary" where you push yourself mentally as well as physically to balance speed vs accuracy. You're expected to manage your ammo and ready condition. The qualifier was a real challenge as the target was not only moving but we went to our bug right in the middle of the shoot. On day two there was emphasis on one handed manipulation both strong and weak hand - learning how to draw and clear malfunctions one handed. Big challenge here - racking your slide one handed -weak hand at that - is not exactly easy! Got to experience the Tueller drill - advancing attacker at 21 feet - you have 1.5 seconds to step out of line of attack, draw and place two aimed shots in center mass. The moving target was a little slow so we did several variations reducing the distance each time. More man on man steel - again with bugs. The ajudicator was intense and fun - team tactics clearing a multi room building - even got to deal with a couple of "drunks." :winkkiss:

We were running out of time but had a quick overview of tactics for disarming (just enough to realize this is a class of its own).

All in all money and time very well spent!

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Sorry but what is bug? Yes, I agree any money/time spent at OFA is money/time well spent. Thanks for the review. For me, I will do DH3 prior to AHT due to your recommendation. Thanks!!!

Member

Member

100% OFA is top notch. If you or others posting here are looking for another great training check out Oregon Precision Firearms Training. There is some great training and good prices as well. I have trained with Rick from OFA and Mike with OPFT. They are both great instructors and even better people. You won't go wrong with either.

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